mistakes

Sometimes a topic is just too dang big to cover in one phone conversation… Self-sabotage turned out to be one of those topics – who knew! I thought an hour would be plenty of time.  I mean, really, it’s not exactly ‘alert the media’ material; it’s not particularly sexy and it’s neither life- threatening nor shocking.

What it IS, however, is omnipresent, ubiquitous, all pervasive and deeply entrenched in the way we are as humanoids (I don’t even know if ‘humanoids’ is a real word, but I love it!). Self-sabotage a big issue because it’s EVERYWHERE we are! We all do it; most of us know we do it and want to STOP doing it. The problem is there seems to be this unspoken consensus that it just “is what it is” and there is little or nothing we can do about it. So we do it (again and again) and ignore that we are doing it. Seriously, why would WE do something so nasty to someone we ‘love’ so much??? Besides, we don’t do it ALL the time…

In the face of that, it becomes the elephant in the room… we don’t talk about it and seldom acknowledge it, so, ‘what we don’t know can’t hurt us’, right? WRONG!!! Self-sabotage is a complex, tragic process that pits us against our own thoughts and impulses. Yes, we all make occasional bad choices, mistakes and errors in judgment, but a true self-saboteur – one who really knows how to play with herself (if you’ll excuse the reference)… continually tries to fix those mistakes by top-loading them with more screw-ups and increasingly bad decisions. So the self-sabotage games ends – and you ‘win’ – when you completely lose!

Our self-sabotage may be conscious or unconscious, but really, what difference does it make? The end results are the same; we’re blowing it – for ourselves and by ourselves! How often do you (or I) stay awake when we’re exhausted, worry over things that shouldn’t matter, exaggerate other people’s achievements as we diminish our own, take unfair criticism to heart, speak negatively to and about ourselves… holy horse-feathers, this sucks!

Grabbing a doughnut once or twice a year won’t kill you (it’s comfort food), but every time you feel super stressed????? That could be 12 times a week (or 12 times a DAY), and your clothes are gonna get tight and your face is gonna break out and your sugar levels are gonna rise and what you did to feel better is going to end up causing you incredible levels of grief! The child in you will celebrate the sweet treat… the adult, not so much.

We all have an inner child – not just some random child, this kid sees life through YOUR history – your memories, fears, worries, decisions, and stories. Often the demands of that little munchkin (who is only trying to practice ‘self-defense’ and protect you) are out of sync with what the ‘adult you’ wants or needs. So what happens when our adult-me wants something and our inner child doesn’t want it… when, in fact, inner child wants the exact opposite?

BAM! Welcome to Self-Sabotage (carried out in the name of self-preservation and self-defense, of course).

And this, my friends is what we’ll be discussing this week in Motivate and Activate… taming the inner child, honing your self-parenting skills and my personal game plan for winning without ‘losing’! See you on the call!

I seldom procrastinate. I’m not a druggie or a drinker, don’t self medicate and I quit smoking. Lord knows I’m not overly modest. Self-injury and cutting don’t appeal to me nor do shopping sprees. So, I’m fine, right? I don’t play the self-sabotage game, do I? I mean, seriously, I did a lot of research on self-sabotage and those things seem to be the most common ways that we shoot ourselves in the foot (so to speak). And, yet, somehow, deep down inside, I have this crazy feeling that, even though I don’t see it, maybe… just maybe… I may be getting in my own way and sabotaging my greatness. I like to play Sudoku, candy crush and solitaire, but self-sabotage is not the game I want to play with myself!

Okay, I admit it, I am a people pleasing, comfort eating, put the other guy first type of humanoid. And I do have a very LOUD inner critic that I constantly have to ignore, but what does all that mean?  How could that stuff be stopping me?  Is it possible that those silly little habitual behaviors – including the things I do that (I think) make me a nice person, are also the things that are holding me back and tripping me up?  Naw, it couldn’t be, could it?

Maybe this is one of those areas of life where it’s waaaay easier to see where someone else is screwing up than it is to recognize where you’re doing it. I’ll put you under the microscope. Okay… sit back and relax, then, while I look at YOU (That’s the ‘global’ you, not YOU you)!

Let me think… what have I noticed, or said to ‘them’ about their obvious bouts of ‘self-defeating doings’? It’s so much easier to recognize that stuff when someone else is doing it.

“By the time I got there the job was taken.”

You might have gotten the job if you had gotten there a little bit earlier. Remember we talked about you being first in line. (Wait a minute, I’ve done that.)

“I’m so angry at myself for skipping my workout!”

Wait, now you’re going to eat the cupcake because you already blew it today by skipping the gym? (Oops, this might have been me once or twice.)

“That jerk finally called after I waited for three full days, so I didn’t take his call.”

You spent three days hoping he’d call and then when he finally did call you didn’t even talk to him? (Hmm, I may have “cut off my nose to spite my face” a time or two.)

“It’s fine. I don’t need the help. I can do it myself.”

Of course you can, but wouldn’t it be a lot faster and easier if you let someone help you

(There may have been a time or two when my stubbornness got in the way.)

Okay, ENOUGH ALREADY!!! I’m getting it. You don’t have to hit me over the head with a two by four! I self-sabotage. I see that. It’s a stupid game. No one ever plays it with me and I never seem to win! I QUIT!!!